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Little Hope for an England Turnaround at Ashes

Ben Stokes, pictured celebrating a century during the third Ashes test match against Australia in Peth on Dec. 17, is England's one bright spot.Credit
David Gray/Reuters

It could soon get even worse for England’s beleaguered cricket players.

If privacy is one of the best therapies to soothe battered pride, they will get little of it Thursday when the Ashes resumes. England has already lost the series, and its misery will be paraded in front of international cricket’s largest crowd of the year when the fourth test begins at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

It is hard to believe that it is little more than four months since England emerged as a 3-0 winner at home in the first of the two Ashes series this year, though that margin overstated the difference between the two teams.

It was always likely that Australia would do better when the series returned Down Under, but no one predicted it would turn the tables so completely. And this time, the 3-0 advantage after three matches is no exaggeration.

Australia has been dominant in each match, winning by margins of 381, 218 and 150 runs. The matches have followed a crushingly similar pattern.

Each time, England has been set a target of more than 500 runs to win in the final innings. No team in the 137-year history of test cricket has ever successfully chased more than 418. Australia has the four highest run-makers in the series and four of the top five wicket-takers.

England has lost two key veterans. Batsman Jonathan Trott’s departure after the first test to deal with depression was followed by the retirement of the veteran spin bowler Graeme Swann from all forms of cricket on Sunday.

Swann, 34, has been criticized for quitting the team in the middle of a tour, but he argued that it would have been more selfish to continue. “To stay on and selfishly play just to experience another Boxing Day test and another Sydney test would be wrong,” he said.

After taking only seven wickets at a cost of more than 80 runs each and being savaged mercilessly by Australia’s top-order batsmen, it is possible he might have been dropped anyway. But a flat ending should not obscure a career of real substance. A late starter in test cricket at 29, his career lasted five years. In that time he took 255 wickets, more than any other bowler over the same span, and he is second on the all-time list for England spinners.

“It is time for somebody else to strap themselves in and enjoy the ride,” Swann said.

First up should be Monty Panesar, the man who Swann displaced in 2008.

“The simple fact of the matter is that we haven’t had the players in form with the bat or ball,” England’s captain, Alastair Cook, said after his team’s four-year hold on the trophy ended last week in Perth.

“In every big series we need the senior players to perform,” Flower said. “And so far that hasn’t happened.”

Its options for change are limited for the current tour. It has 17 players, but three of those are tall pacemen who do not appear to inspire much confidence in the tour selectors, and two more are spinners, Scott Borthwick and James Tredwell, who were called up Monday to replace Swann.

Stuart Broad, the one England bowler not to disappoint during this series, was struck in the foot by a ball from Australia’s lethal paceman, Mitchell Johnson, during the Perth test, and he will struggle to play in Melbourne.

England has been unable to cope with Australia’s sheer aggression, which is centered on fast bowling and rapid scoring. The contrast with England’s passive-aggressive style — reactive, risk-averse and often dull to watch even when it was winning — has been striking. It was argued earlier this year that this approach denied Australia any chance it had at coming back. A 3-0 series victory backed up that view.

It is now clear that instead, it left Australia’s players with their collective spirit intact. By the time the series in England ended, Australia seemed to be the happier and more positive team.

“Would an England team in such a superior position have put the boot in the same way?” asked the former England batsman Mark Butcher — who was critical of England’s approach during the last series — in an interview with ESPNCricinfo website after the Perth test. “I think that the answer is no.”

But amid the gloom there is one glimmer of light for England: the innings of 120 played by the rookie all-rounder Ben Stokes in a losing cause at Perth, though there is often the temptation to overpraise players in such circumstances. Usman Khawaja, a newcomer who received much praise in Australian media when his team fell in the Ashes three years ago, has never fully established himself on the team.

But Stokes, who is 22, looked like the real thing. His all-around skills potentially make him a vital building block as the team is reconstructed. And England needs every source of cheer it can get at this moment.